I'm still interested in Barty's point, though - there does seems to be a step-change in what you expect rappers to sound like over about the first half of the nineties, even if that doesn't stop me getting into Rakim. If I was going to try to pin it down I'd say it's that the flows get looser and less locked on the rhythm and rappers make more of a feature of imprecise diction, accents, nonverbal noises.

It's at the same time that slow beats get a lot more prevalent and explicit gangsterism gets more mainstream, both of which are presumably related on some level.

a record is an enviroment but it's also a social enviroment. what is a social enviroment? think of it in terms of diction. what registers are in use. what can and cant be broached and how. how this differs from context to context.
the tentative and allusive, cautious language of courting or the bruising and boorish language, albeit frequently hilarious, of male groups.

I'm still interested in Barty's point, though - there does seems to be a step-change in what you expect rappers to sound like over about the first half of the nineties, even if that doesn't stop me getting into Rakim. If I was going to try to pin it down I'd say it's that the flows get looser and less locked on the rhythm and rappers make more of a feature of imprecise diction, accents, nonverbal noises.

It's at the same time that slow beats get a lot more prevalent and explicit gangsterism gets more mainstream, both of which are presumably related on some level.

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Diction has multiple concerns, of which register is foremost—another way of saying this is whether words are either formal or informal in the social context. Literary diction analysis reveals how a passage establishes tone and characterization, e.g. a preponderance of verbs relating physical movement suggests an active character, while a preponderance of verbs relating states of mind portrays an introspective character. Diction also has an impact upon word choice and syntax.

Aristotle, in The Poetics (20) states that "Diction comprises eight elements: Phoneme, Syllable, Conjunction, Connective, Noun, Verb, Inflection, and Utterance. However, Epps states[7] that in this passage "the text is so confused and some of the words have such a variety of meanings that one cannot always be certain what the Greek says, much less what Aristotle means."

early rapping would have been still largely conditioned by its recent origins as live performance, and then secondarily being as played as records in a club

so it would need to project outwards and have a legible rhyme scheme, that to today's ears sounds like doggerel

but as rap evolves, rapping styles adapt to the studio recording as the prime locus (the music is also getting access to the radio now, which it didn't for a long time, early on - and also maturing into an album based form)

so the vocals sit majestically in the midst of a cinematic recording, rather than project outwards across a space

things get looser and more intimate because they are able to

i should think that will only intensify as more and more people listen almost entirely on headphones - and a little bitty low quality ones as well - perhaps that's one of the things Drake is, the earbud rapper

it's a bit like the change in singing in mid-century popular music

you listen to an early musical from the 30s and the singers are still coming out what is essentially operetta - projecting across a large space, without amplification- the singing is stagey and it belts - you have to reach the people in the cheap seats - even when it's a movie, the reference point is still musical theater

then Bing Crosby, Sinatra etc discover what can be done with a close microphone and invent crooning, a stylesuited to recording - intimate, right in your ear - Sinatra pretty much invents the LP-as-whole-listening-experience thing

You are now witnessing the devolution of rap music. The death of poetry and smoothness, they use this. The absence of a message. The inability to create meaningful change through words and verses, but the worse is, they don’t even know they hurt this artful purpose, it’s tragic.

There’s always the impossible to shake off feeling that certain rare records correlate to certain rare modes of consciousness. That music is a map of consciousness in its various states. And exploring the edges of music is somehow skin to exploring the edges of consciousness. To stop exploring music is to stop exploring existence. A way of closing the net curtains. Books too, to find the book which forces you to expand the brain box, like a snake dislocating it jaw to swallow a large animal. Anything else is closing the net curtains, or pressing the same pleasure button for the same predictable stimulus. Compulsive behaviour in other words, dull routine, insidious habit.
Habit change is a magical operation. It gives you more control over your own behaviour. Less compulsion, more choice.

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”

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This is an interesting sort of idea to apply to music and music fandom, because most people seek out music (/books/art) which is like what they already like, not music which is nothing like what they already like. But then there is also the human addiction to novelty, and in the case of us dissensians, the constant desire for the next new thing, the music which doesn't just sound like something we've heard before (but at the same time probably shares something in common with what we've liked before).

(A side question that might be of interest to ponder is, when people do encounter art which isn't like what they do like, are they likely to have their minds changed by it, or their prejudices only reinforced?)

btw this is a good thing about radio, and to a lesser extent about the shuffle function - the pleasure of discovering something you weren't looking for.